The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) just announced for automobiles. Those standards include a mandate for advanced automatic braking systems for all new cars that manufacturers must meet by 2029. That’s only five years.
This applies to all passenger cars and light trucks under 10,000 pounds. The automatic emergency braking systems must be able to bring a car to a complete stop at speeds of up to 100 km/h while avoiding a collision. These systems must also account for oncoming pedestrians traveling at speeds of up to 45 miles per hour, both day and night.
Automatic emergency braking uses a variety of sensors, lasers and cameras to detect collisions. If an accident is imminent, the system brakes automatically or activates brake assist to help the driver come to a stop quickly and safely. It is worth mentioning that manufacturers are already installing these systems in 90 percent of all new cars , but many of these tools do not meet the MPH limits mentioned above. The NHTSA says most manufacturers should be able to meet these requirements through software updates.
The federal agency estimates that these new rules are expected to prevent more than 360 traffic deaths per year and reduce the severity of more than 24,000 injuries. It is also expected to save people a lot of money on property damage costs. Cathy Chase, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, that the new rules are a “huge victory for all consumers and public safety.” In 2023 alone, there were over 100,000 in the US, and that’s actually a slight decrease from the previous year.
However, the actual automotive industry is not quite as optimistic about the mandate. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a lobbying group that works on behalf of automakers, has called on NHTSA to consider other options. A key suggestion is to lower the speed threshold in certain cases, as the group stated that “significant hardware and software changes will be required to achieve levels of performance that no production vehicle can currently achieve.”
To this end, tests conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety show that these systems adequately fulfill the mission. The research group said it tested crash avoidance systems on 10 small SUVs at speeds of up to 43 miles per hour, and many of them failed to stop in time to avoid a crash in the most difficult test scenarios. The Subaru Forester and the Honda CR-V performed best for market participants.
Heavy-duty vehicles, like larger trucks, could receive their own mandate in the near future. NHTSA is currently working with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a truck safety agency, to develop similar standards for vehicles that experience sputtering.